THE angry mother of a teenage schoolboy last night hit out at a local authority's decision to remove his free bus pass because he is not a Roman Catholic.
Reece Swain, 13, was told he would no longer be able to travel to St Modan's High in Stirling free - despite enjoying the privilege during his first year at the school.
Stirling Council officials said he was not entitled to a free pass because he
does not live in the school's catchment area and is not "a practising Roman Catholic".
"This should have been picked up when the pupil enrolled at St Modan's High School, but it appears that this was overlooked," the council said in a statement.
The boy's mother, Julie, has now stopped sending her son to the school and is taking legal advice in an attempt to get the local authority to change its mind.
She said that she and her husband, John, had decided to enrol their son at St Margaret's RC Primary when he began school because it had a better reputation than the local non-denominational school, Fallin Primary.
After seven years there, Reece went on to St Modan's High rather than the non-Catholic Wallace High School.
Mrs Swain said: "The social circle that he had were all going to St Modan's, so there was no way that Reece was going to go anywhere else."
But while he was given a free bus pass during his first year at the school, Reece was told when he returned after summer that the council had discovered that she should not have been entitled to it in the first place.
Mrs Swain added: "We didn't receive any notification from Stirling Council. Reece just went to get on the bus on the first day of term and was told that he couldn't get on for nothing because his name wasn't on the list."
Mrs Swain said she and her husband had worked out that it would cost them £275 a year in bus fares if the decision was not overturned.
"We've taken legal advice on it and have written to the council," she said. "I'm willing to take this as far as I can because I am so angry about it."
She added: "Stirling Council are just being bigots.
"There's all this stuff about 'One Scotland' and anti-sectarianism, yet the council are able to kick Reece off the school bus because he's not a Catholic."
In a statement, Stirling Council said free school transport was available only to pupils within the catchment area.
"For St Modan's High School, catchment is based on residence within the area as well as the child being a practising Roman Catholic. In this case, since the child is not recorded as being a practising Roman Catholic and is not a catchment pupil, he is therefore not entitled to free home-to-school transport."
